Boston Globe Wants YouTube to Police “Attack Ads”
 
Prompted by the phenomenal exposure of the Obama 1984 YouTube video, which portrayed Hillary’s Campaign as “Big Brother,” the Boston Globe, in an editorial today, expressed concern over the potential impact the use of such internet video clips could have on presidential campaigns.
Although the Globe acknowledges the Obama 1984 video “falls within the bounds of acceptability”, it then goes on to argue that such video clips are political advertisements, and in appropriate circumstances, should be policed or removed by YouTube:
But suppose it was two or three days before a close election, and a scurrilous, deceitful, anonymous clip was posted on YouTube and the other sites that specialize in homemade videos. Candidates should, of course, monitor all these sites and flag the offending videos. But doesn't YouTube have an obligation to make sure these ads are swept from its site before they can do harm? YouTube today doesn't have a policy against attack ads late in the campaign, but it should.
The Globe uses the terms “ad” and “video” interchangeably in its editorial. But how is a video not paid nor produced by a political campaign an advertisement in need of regulation?
As I have commented previously, the rise of the internet has dramatically altered the media landscape. But of the two political parties, it is the Democrats who have the most to lose by the ascendancy of the new decentralized, fragmented media.
Why?
At the apex of their power and influence, the major broadcast networks functioned as wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party. Today, thanks to the internet and the astounding rise of Fox News, the old mainstream media outlets no longer maintain their monopoly on news-gathering and dissemination. News/information that is unfavorable to Democrats can no longer be unilaterally exorcised.
Undoubtedly, the negative connotations for Hillary reverberating from the Obama 1984 video is cause for concern for the Globe.
The Globe editorial doesn’t address the following issues:
  1. 1.Exactly what constitutes a political advertisement?
  2. 2.Exactly what constitutes an “attack ad”
  3. 3.Why do videos produced by citizens unconnected either formally or informally with a political campaign need to be policed at all?
The notoriety of the Obama 1984 video is a watershed event in political campaigns. Newspapers, broadcast networks and even the candidates themselves no longer have the ability to shape or mold public opinion unilaterally.
For politicians as well as Old Media, in terms of controlling the political message and managing the communications cycle, it truly is, A Brave New World.
 
Beacon Street Journal
Friday, March 23, 2007
By Johnny K